A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 21 people and wounding another 21 before he was killed, police said. The university told students to stay inside and away from windows as police swept the campus and worked to establish whether the gunman acted alone. On the website, Tech reported the shootings at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and said there were "multiple victims" at Norris Hall, an engineering building. All entrances to the campus were closed and classes canceled through Tuesday. "There's just a lot of commotion. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on," said student Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the dorm where shooting took place. Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the 4th floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. ... http://www.usatoday.com

A powerful spring storm snarled airports and roads Monday in the East, with high winds, rain and even snow pounding the coast from Florida to Maine. The record-setting rain began falling Sunday night and continued into Monday morning. The storm was especially harsh in the suburbs north of New York City, where flooding led two communities to declare states of emergency. The National Guard was called into the area overnight to help with rescue and evacuation efforts. "The whole Northeastern corridor is going to have a bad day again," Weather Channel senior meteorologist Mark Ressler says. "Boston will be horrible." The storm gave runners in Monday's Boston Marathon something to worry about besides Heartbreak Hill. Monday morning, several inches of wind-driven rain had fallen and the wind was gusting to more than 30 mph — but the marathon still was scheduled to start as scheduled....http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/2007-04-16-storm_N.htm?csp=34

The pros and cons of ethanol and plans for a 5,000 mile natural gas pipeline are top of the agenda at the South American Energy Summit in Venezuela. The two day summit on the Caribbean island of Margarita is being hosted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Venezuela is the region's only member of the oil-producers' cartel Opec and Mr Chavez opposes the use of ethanol. He is expected to give more details of a proposed gas pipeline between Venezuela and Colombia. The Venezuelan energy minister Rafael Ramirez says the plan would involve investing $10m (£5.02m) on improving the quality of life in villages along the route of the pipeline. Brazil's President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva has rejected criticism from President Chavez and others that the use of ethanol as a biofuel would increase food prices. Brazil is a pioneer in the use of ethanol made from sugar cane to power cars....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6560197.stm

About 70% of primary school students in a Baghdad neighborhood suffer symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed-wetting or stuttering, according to a survey by the Iraqi Ministry of Health. The survey of about 2,500 youngsters is the most comprehensive look at how the war is affecting Iraqi children, said Iraq's national mental health adviser and author of the study, Mohammed Al-Aboudi. "The fighting is happening in the streets in front of our houses and schools," al-Aboudi said. "This is very difficult for the children to adapt to." The study is to be released next month. Al-Aboudi discussed the findings with USA TODAY. Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks....http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-15-cover-war-children_N.htm?csp=34

Pope Benedict XVI marked his 80th birthday on Monday by lunching with cardinals and attending a concert -- a relatively low-key celebration in line with the quiet pace of what he has said would be a "short" papacy. Benedict spent the morning meeting with well-wishers from his native Germany, including the governors of Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein, and a representative of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians. Gifts poured in, including 80 bottles of Bavarian beer from the archdiocese of Munich, a birthday cake from some seminarians in Rome, and a giant stuffed teddy bear, which the pontiff donated to a local children's hospital. "The pope said explicitly that he would prefer not to accept personal gifts, but that anyone who wanted to give him a gift could make a donation that he could then use, for example for the Holy Land, or for other areas of crisis in the world or for Africa," ...http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266311,00.html

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was quoted as having played down his earlier concern about a possible U.S. recession, saying the world economy would provide a cushion, Bloomberg reported Monday.Greenspan was speaking via satellite link from Washington to a financial forum in Tokyo and his comments were quoted by a few of the participants, Bloomberg said.Greenspan said growth in the rest of the world is creating demand for services from firms such as Microsoft (MSFT), according to Vaseehar Hassan Abdul Razack, chairman of Kuala Lumpur-based RHB Islamic Bank, who attended the meeting and whose remarks were cited by Bloomberg.Greenspan didn't mention recession on Monday, according to Anne Okko, who works in funding administration at the Nordic Investment Bank, Bloomberg said.Okko quoted Greenspan as saying the world economy is on a positive trend, Bloomberg said....http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2007-04-16-greenspan_N.htm?csp=34